Golf Grip Part 5: How Tight Should Your Grip Be?

We do not mean so tight that the muscles of the upper arms and shoulders are tied up with tension. No Way!

But we do want those hands tight on the club.

But what about the wrists?

If they are tight, won't the swing be stiff and wooden? And how will I get my wrist break?

Never mind about the wrists.

We have rarely seen anybody too stiff or too tight in swinging a golf club (except perhaps for frightened beginners), but we have seen thousands too loose.

The whole tendency in beginners is to take too light a grip.

The loose golf grip leads into faults—opening the hands at the top, collapsing the left wrist, overswinging, and so on.

The tight golf grip, though it may feel awkward for a while, acts as a brace against these various faults and makes the whole swinging action easier to perform correctly.

By a tight golf grip we also mean with practically all the fingers that are on the golf club. These would be the last three, principally, of the left hand and the first three of the right.

Many players have a tendency to place the forefinger of the right hand, the one that hooks around the shaft just below the right thumb, very lightly on the golf club.

Don't do it.

The tight golf grip, though it may feel awkward for a while, acts as a brace against these various faults and makes the whole swinging action easier to perform correctly.

Hook this finger around the shaft firmly, so that the tip of it makes a definite contact with the tip of the thumb.

If you don't, the club will be liable to drop, at the top of the swing, into the big V between the forefinger and thumb: This means a loss of control at the top, which must be regained as the club comes down.

So much for the grip — a tight two-knuckle overlap, to reduce it to capsule form.

Now, how do we stand up the ball? No great mystery is involved in this either, although certain points must be observed.

In the first place, we should take a position that enables us to swing the club back freely and to bring it down to the ball on an inside-out arc easily.

For this the weight should be about equally divided between the feet.

The knees must be slightly flexed, better too much than too little. The body should be bent slightly from the waist but the shoulders should be rounded or hunched over.

The head should be down, not to an exaggerated extent, but down rather than up.

The right shoulder, of course, will be lower than the left, because the right hand is farther down on the, shaft than the left hand.